As The Pendulum Swings…

Newsweek is floating the idea that the heyday for consumer generated content has come and gone.

In short, the expert is back. The revival comes amid mounting demand for a more reliable, bankable Web. “People are beginning to recognize that the world is too dangerous a place for faulty information,” says Charlotte Beal, a consumer strategist for the Minneapolis-based research firm Iconoculture. Beal adds that choice fatigue and fear of bad advice are creating a “perfect storm of demand for expert information.”
“The wisdom of the crowds has peaked,” says Jason Calacanis of Mahalo. “Web 3.0 is taking what we’ve built in Web 2.0—the wisdom of the crowds—and putting an editorial layer on it of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined.”

Did he really need to say Web 3.0? I suppose he did. But I’m so not ready for it. Although, I am more than ready for better content from trusted sources.
Just because a cell phone can shoot video doesn’t mean the person operating the device has the faintest clue about building an audience.

Native Nebraskan in the Pacific Northwest. Chief Storyteller at Bonehook, a guide service and bait shop for brands. Co-founder and editor of AdPulp. Contributor to The Content Strategist. Doer of the things written about herein.

Experts at Wharton disagree on where the Internet content pendulum sits and whether it’s worth fretting over the short-term swings between professional and amateur content. Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader and Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach say fears about user-generated content are misplaced. “It’s absurd to say the pendulum is swinging back to professional content. User-generated content has just been born,” says Fader. There is little evidence to suggest that it takes market share from the professional variety, he adds.

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